


All This Wishing Is Getting Old

by leyley09



Series: To the Bitter End [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5576965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leyley09/pseuds/leyley09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick has had just about enough of clingy, drunk Jonathan Toews.</p>
<p>An alternate point of view on "While I Follow Like Thread", as requested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All This Wishing Is Getting Old

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whydisignuponthisgodforsakensite (AndrAIa_Matrix)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndrAIa_Matrix/gifts).



> For whydisignuponthisgodforsakensite, who left me essentially an amazing liveblog of While I Follow Like Thread, and then asked "would you ever consider writing Patrick's POV?" I hadn't considered it prior to that, but once I did, I sort of couldn't stop. So, I hope this is an adequate thank you for the delightful comments you left and just generally being a nice person to interact with. 
> 
> (Title adapted from "Tie Me Up! Untie Me!" by mewithoutYou, because where else was I going to look but the same song I used last time?)
> 
> *Update* - In case anyone was wondering, 'the bitter end' is the end of a rope that is tied off to something.

He’s hiding; he’s mature enough to admit that. It’s not good hiding, because he’s still in the same room as everyone else, but there’s a big crowd in here. Maybe avoiding is a better word. Yes, avoiding is exactly what he’s doing, avoiding Jonathan “Let me put my hands all over you” Toews.

They’ve only been here for about an hour, but it was a good win tonight, and Jonny started drinking the second they walked in the door. He’s still mostly functional but has already hit that level of drunkenness that means he’s extra clingy. Jonny doesn’t really respect Pat’s personal space when he’s sober; he loses all concept of it when he’s drunk. Pat was able to escape a few minutes ago, when Jonny needed both hands to demonstrate...something to the guys standing around him, but he isn’t holding out hope that this is anything more than a temporary reprieve.

“You don’t look like you’re having a very good time,” the girl leaning up against the bar next to him leans in to yell.

“I’ve had less fun,” Pat yells back with a smile. Being annoyed with Jonny is nothing new, and it’s certainly no reason to be rude to strangers.

“Uh, me too. The last time we were in here, there were these guys on the other side of the bar that got into some kind of stupid argument. There was almost a fight, lots of screaming. It was crazy, right?” She turns to include the girls standing just behind her.

“I haven’t had one here, but this one time, we were at this bar in Vancouver, which was kind of stupid, but -”

A sudden warmth across his shoulders is the only warning he has before Jonny plasters himself all over his back. One arm comes up around his shoulders, the other nearly around his waist. He readjusts his hat; Jonny’s stupid neck has nearly knocked it off his head. The girls giggle; one of them actually says “aww” out loud. Pat sighs.

“What’s this?” One of the girls tugs on something Jonny is clutching tightly in his hand.

“Oh! It’s to, uh, to make sure Pat stops wandering off.”

The girls burst into giggles. Pat squints a little harder at Jonny’s hand. Are those  _ shoelaces _ ?

He elbows Jonny to get him to loosen his grip and shifts sideways so that he can make eye contact. “What  _ exactly _ do you think you are going to do with  _ that _ ?”

He thinks, for a split second, that things are going to be okay, because Jonny drops his arms and steps away. “Here, see, we’ll tie this end to you,” Jonny says as he starts groping at the front of Pat’s jeans. Which is a  **terrible** idea; they’re in  **public.**

Several things happen in near slow motion: he yelps in shock and tries to back away, but Jonny’s already tangled his fingers into one of the belt loops. His noise startles Jonny, who full-body flinches away from the noise emitted directly into his ear. Jonny loses his semi-functional balance, but not his grip on Pat’s jeans. They tumble to the floor in an awkward heap.

Jonny puts out body heat like a self-sustaining furnace. Pat didn’t need to know how that would feel pinned underneath him. Self-preservation forces him to his feet far sooner than traitorous parts of his mind (and body) would like. He takes a couple of deep, shaky breaths before reaching down to yank Jonny up from the floor.

“Jesus fucking christ, Jonny, who let you wander around unsupervised right now? And with their fucking shoelaces at that? Where are the rest of the guys?” He lets Jonny lean on him; it’ll be faster than trying to keep him upright alone.

“You know, if you would just do this all the time, I wouldn’t need these sh-, these uh, this rope thing.”

“Do what all the time, Jonny.”

“Be where you’re supposed to be.” The ‘what a dumb question’ part goes unsaid.

Pat is suddenly extremely irritated. It comes up without warning, and he knows it’s out of proportion to what Jonny actually did. But he’s so, so tired of this.

“And where, exactly, is that.” He knows Jonny’s not fooled by his flat tone, but he doesn’t want to start an argument in the middle of this bar.

“Right here.” Again with the ‘what a dumb question’ attitude.

“Jonathan, that is less than helpful.” He pushes him unceremoniously onto a chair across the table from Seabs. “Can someone keep an eye on him, please? He was trying to tie someone’s shoelaces to my pants.”

“We tried to talk him out of it, Peeks,” Sharpy says with a chuckle. “He was very persistent though. We figured it was just better for everyone; he gets all cranky when he doesn’t know where you are.”

Fuck this, that’s enough. “Too fucking bad,” Pat snaps back. He throws the shoelaces - how the hell did he end up with the damn things - onto the table and does his best not to run away.

He takes refuge in a back corner, behind the bar, where there’s a couple of tables wedged into some leftover space. The lighting is terrible, but there’s no one back there to see him bury his head in his arms.

He doesn’t know if he can do this anymore. He thought maybe, just maybe, it was getting better. Nearly eight years of this shit, and you’d think he’d be used to Jonny’s absurd level of possessiveness by now, but apparently not. He doesn’t even truly mind being manhandled or leaned on or squashed between Jonny and whoever else. What he minds is not being allowed to react to it. 

Reacting to it would mean Jonny would know that he likes it, and Pat’s pretty sure that would mean that it would stop. So instead, he tortures himself and lets it continue because somehow that’s better than not having Jonny at all.

Just as he’s starting to wonder if he should go home and wallow in his misery in private, the chair across from him scrapes across the floor with an unpleasant screech. He looks up to see Sharpy and Duncs sitting down at the other side of the table.

“Peeks, we’re sorry,” Sharpy starts out. “He said he was going to tie the thing to your wrist, not your pants. I didn’t think…. well, that’s not the point. We’re sorry that we encouraged him. I didn’t… shit, why didn’t you tell me it was still a problem?”

“We really thought it was better, Kaner,” Duncs adds quietly.

“So did I,” Pat groans into the table top. “But I think he’s getting worse.”

There’s a moment of silence, during which Pat contemplates what would be worse, putting up with Jonny’s behavior or playing hockey without him. 

“Pat,” Duncs says quietly, “I know you didn’t want -”

“But this is getting stupid, Peekaboo, and it’s for your own good -”

Pat lifts his head up from the table and levels a glare at both of them. “What did you do?”

They look at each other for a second before Sharpy looks back at Pat, straightening up and tensing like he’s steeling himself to do something unpleasant. 

“Seabs is yelling at him. He’s trying to tell him he needs to cut that shit out.”

“Kaner, come back to the table with us. Just let him tie you together this one time. Trust us.”

Pat hates everyone in this bar right now, because he’s absolutely going to do that, even though it’s ridiculous and stupid and will lead to nothing good for him. But - he just needs to  _ know _ . He needs to stop wondering if the drunk clinging means more. Maybe if he knows for sure that it’s just a weird thing that Jonny does, maybe he can stop getting his hopes up. He’ll go over there and let this happen, and then everyone else will be able to see that it’s not like that for Jonny and will give it a fucking rest already.

“Fine.”

Sharpy’s halfway across the bar before Pat stands up, but Duncs waits for him. Pat’s not sure if he’s being polite or if he’s being herded towards the table.

“...they were right behind me,” Sharpy’s saying when they reach the table. Duncs takes no chances on which empty chair Pat is going to take; he sort of shoves him at Jonny, who is standing next to a chair lying on its back on the ground.

Pat sits down in the empty seat next to Jonny and looks up across the table. The unified glare is only broken by Seabs, in the middle, but he looks like he’s waiting for Pat to do  _ something _ , he just doesn’t know what it is yet. Pat glares back, but he reaches for the rope of shoelaces on the table anyway.

He looks at it for a moment.  _ This is your point of no return.  _ He takes a couple of deep breaths, reminds himself that plenty of other teams would be lucky to have him if this goes wrong, and offers one end to Jonny.

“I want to go on the record that I think this is ridiculous, but if it will keep you from being even weirder, let’s just get it over with.”

Jonny fucking  _ beams _ at him _.  _ This is like “look at all these people at this parade can you believe we won the fucking Stanley Cup” beaming. It’s not quite the same, but Pat can’t think of another time in which he’s seen Jonny smile like that - at anyone. He’s got to look away before his own face does something he can’t control. He looks down to tie the shoelaces to one of his belt loops - one of the side ones, thank you, he’s not crazy. When he looks back up, the guys across the table are trying - very poorly - to conceal their own grins. He frowns at them to cover up the smile that wants to break loose on his face. 

“You all suck, by the way, for encouraging this loser.”

“Your mom sucks” is not Sharpy’s best comeback ever, especially because he knows that shit is off-limits, but Pat lets it go. When Jonny tries to surreptitiously slide his chair closer to Pat, he lets himself lean into the arm around the back of his chair, just a little.

  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  


An hour later, Seabs insists that Jonny’s had enough to drink and volunteers Pat to make sure he gets home. Jonny starts to protest about ‘not being that drunk’ before having a muttered argument with Duncs and Seabs. Pat opens his mouth to protest as well; Sharpy kicks him in the ankle. Pat’s too busy glaring at him to listen to what’s being said, so he’s not paying attention when Jonny stands up abruptly.

Pat’s dragged sideways with no warning whatsoever. He was in the process of turning to look at Jonny’s movement already, which means he comes to sudden stop with his face smushed against one of Jonny’s thighs. Which would be a nice place to be if a) they weren’t in a bar in front of their teammates and assorted strangers, and b) if Jonny actually wanted him to be there. He rights himself on the chair and reaches up to untie the shoelaces from Jonny’s jeans, trying to ignore the laughter from the other side of the table. He glares at Jonny, but it doesn’t seem to be inspiring the sort of apology he’d like right now.

The laces are barely free before Jonny’s pulling Pat to his feet. Oh, okay, apparently they’re leaving now. Pat lets him direct them towards the exit and gives Seabs the finger when he shouts about getting his shoelaces back. He pushes through the door onto the street, feeling Jonny’s radiant heat against his back contrasting with the brisk spring air against his front. 

A cab is, fortunately, just pulling up to the curb, so Pat waves it down and pushes Jonny into the backseat. He stumbles a little more than Pat expected, which means he’s drunker than he’ll admit to being. Pat would feel bad, but he’s still got the sense memory of Jonny’s thigh against his face. He decides he doesn’t feel bad at all.

“Pat, Pat, hey,” Jonny grabs at his wrist as Pat shuts the door behind him.

“What, Jonny.” He’s too tired for this shit tonight.

“Don’t be mad, ok? I didn’t mean to make you mad. You just, you don’t, and - and you need to. I can’t when you’re not and then things happen and it’s just not good, okay?”

Pat has  _ no idea _ what that even means. Well, he knows Jonny didn’t mean to make him mad. Even when he’s being annoying, he doesn’t want Pat to be angry at him. But the rest of that makes no sense to Pat.

“Jonny.”

“Yeah?”

“You should probably stop talking, you aren’t making any sense. You can lecture me all about why I shouldn’t be mad at you tomorrow.” If he even remembers any of this.

“But you’re mad  _ now _ , and I don’t know  _ why _ .”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s  _ it _ . “I know you don’t, Jonny, stop whining,” Pat snaps at him. “But you’ve been perfectly happy being oblivious up till now, so just let it go okay?” He jerks his wrist away from Jonny and crosses his arms tightly across his chest, trying to get as far away from Jonny as he possibly can. He knows Jonny’s pouting in the other corner of the cab, because that’s what he does, but he can’t spare the energy to make him feel better tonight. 

The cab slows to a stop in front of Trump Tower. Pat’s halfway to the sidewalk before he realizes Jonny isn’t following him.

“Jonny.”

“What,” he mumbles into his lap.

“Are you coming?”

“Huh?”

“Are. You. Coming.” Pat pauses, knowing he’s going to regret this. “You can go home, I guess, if you want, but I’m supposed to make sure you don’t injure yourself and you’ve got stairs.”

Jonny practically leaps for the door. “No, no, I am, I’m coming.” He stumbles on the curb.

After just saying he was supposed to make sure Jonny didn’t injure himself, Pat can’t let him crash into the sidewalk, even if part of him sort of wants to. He catches him, but they end up doing a weird, dance-like spinning motion to avoid both of them falling to the ground. When they come to a stop, Jonny’s wrapped around him so tightly he can barely breathe.

“Pat,” Jonny mumbles into the side of his head.

That’s just, no, just no. He sort of pushes Jonny more upright (and less on him) before he answers, “Yeah Jonny.”

“You are, you know, you are like my faaaaaaavorite person, in-in like the whole world.”

“No, Jonny, I’m really not.”  _ Not like I’d like to be anyway _ . He’s not going to cry on the sidewalk; he doesn’t need those pictures on the internet. He propels Jonny through the doors and towards the elevators.

“No, but you are. You are just the best, like, you- you’re better than Duncs, and he knows how to tie knots.” 

Well, that clears that right up.

“What makes me better than knot-tying Duncs, Jonny?” Maybe this will be funny enough to block out the rest of that conversation. He leans Jonny against the far wall before selecting the floor and staying as far away from Jonny as he can get in this confined space.

“You are, okay, it’s like a secret, be-because I don’t want to share with, uh, with anybody, but you are like the best for leaning on.”

That’s not funny at all.

“Cause, you’re like just the right size and you, you just fit, you know?”  _ I know we do, that’s the problem. _ “And I can lean on you without wo-worrying that I’m gonna smush you. And, uh, and you know what else you’re the best for?”  _ Oh god, please stop. _ “You are totally the best for hugging. Like, way better than, than just everybody. Ever.” He looks so pleased with himself for getting all of that out.

Pat feels like he’s been punched in the stomach. “Jonny.” He takes a deep breath, holds it for a few seconds. He is  _ not _ going to cry tonight, dammit. “Jonny, please stop talking. Please.”

“But, I gotta, Seabs says I gotta tell you that I’m stupid too, and I don’t wanna forget.”

_ Great _ . Seabs is a dead man if he thinks this was a funny prank to pull.

“Okay, so you told me. Can you please stop now?” The elevator stops on his floor, thank god. He manages to get Jonny out of the elevator and to his door with surprisingly little physical contact. Once they’re through the door, he pushes Jonny towards the hallway.

“You know where the guest room is, man, so just go be asleep already.”  _ Anything to make this stop _ . “Drink some water!” Totally hungover Jonny is a pain in the ass; it’s just self-preservation.

Jonny bounces off the wall and a weird end table that Pat’s mom insisted on before turning the corner towards the bedrooms. Pat takes the mature action and hides in the kitchen. He forces down a bottle of Gatorade because thinking about that means he doesn’t have to think about that elevator ride. It doesn’t really work though. He’s been waiting for years to hear something, anything, like that, and it was just some stupid prank.

Eventually, he’s too tired to hide in the kitchen any longer. He hopes Jonny’s gone to bed. He pushes open the door to his bedroom and comes to a stop. Jonny is sprawled across the mattress, face buried in Pat’s pillow. He’s still got his shoes on.

**_Bloody fucking goddamn hell._ **

He just can’t tonight, not after all the shit. Most nights, he’d just shove Jonny over and deal with the resulting snuggling in the morning. But no, not tonight. Before he goes, though, one last thing - he pulls the curtains open wide.

He doesn’t slam the door on the way out; Jonny’s not going to notice anything for a few hours at least. He’ll save that for tomorrow.

Instead, he shuts the door quietly and makes his way to the guest room. No one’s been in here since the last time Jonny passed out in here, although he’s pretty sure the cleaning service has changed the sheets. He trips over a spare pair of Jonny’s sneakers on the way to the bed.

He climbs in, burrows deep under the blankets, and proceeds to cry himself to sleep.

  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  


Pat wakes up the next morning unfortunately early. He’s slept like shit, his eyes feel all gritty from crying, and this mattress is definitely not as nice as the one on his bed. The one that Jonny is currently occupying.

If Jonny thinks he and Seabs are going to get away with the shit they pulled last night, they have clearly forgotten who they are messing with. But Pat needs coffee before he can plan his revenge, so he drags himself out of bed and into the shower. 

Feeling a little less like death warmed over, he moves on to coffee. Sitting on his sofa, looking out over Chicago, he decides that Jonny was too drunk to be one of the masterminds of last night’s debacle. That doesn’t mean he gets off scot-free though. He made Pat feel terrible last night, and he’s going to pay for that. 

Pat waits until the sun has risen enough to be pouring through the open curtains in his bedroom. He goes back into the kitchen, switches on the radio, and starts his Keurig for another cup of coffee. Then he heads for the bedroom. If Jonny’s not awake already, he’s about to be.

He turns the doorknob slowly, then pushes it open with considerable force. It bounces off the wall back towards him with a satisfying bang. Through the doorway, he sees Jonny collapse onto the mattress and hide his face under a pillow.

“Up and at ‘em, sunshine!” Pat shouts, enjoying himself immensely.

“Fucking hell, Patrick,” Jonny moans from underneath the pillow.

“Hey, if you’re going to be an asshole and then steal my bed, you have to deal with the consequences.” Pat drops onto the mattress and starts bouncing up and down, like a little kid. Jonny makes a choked noise and rolls off the bed onto the floor. Pat sighs and moves around to the other side of the bed.

“C’mon, Jonny, you’ll feel better if you shower and eat something.” Pat pokes him in the side with his toe.

“Pat, I don’t know what I said last night, but I feel like this might be overdoing the revenge.”

“Oh, do you?” Pat starts to kick him, but pulls his kick part of the way through. He doesn’t want to explain “I injured Jonny because he hurt my feelings” to, well, anyone. A bruise, though; he can leave a bruise. “How about you just trust me that I could be doing a lot worse to you right now. Get up, asshole.” He storms out of the room and slams the door behind him.

He stands in the hallway, breathing heavily, listening to Jonny drag himself into the bathroom.  _ It wasn’t his idea; save it for Seabs. _ It’s time for breakfast. Food will make both of them feel better, and maybe he can get Jonny to contribute some ideas on how to get even with Seabs. He goes into the kitchen and dumps a bunch of stuff into his blender.

The blender is quite loud (which is part of the reason he chose it, to be honest), but it also means that he doesn’t hear Jonny come into the kitchen until after he’s poured the smoothie into a couple of glasses.

“Seabs told me last night that I needed to tell you that I was stupid.”

_ Fucking hell.  _ Pat jumps and nearly overturns the glasses. He doesn’t need to hear this again, goddammit. “You did that last night, so-”  

“I know, I remember. But I left the important part out when I was telling you.”

“Oh?” Pat might have to injure him after all. He wonders if he can throw the blender jar before Jonny can duck.

“I didn’t mean to make you angry last night, but you don’t stay where I want you to - with me - and I need you to. I can’t pay attention to anything else when you’re not there, and things happen, like those girls at the bar, and then you’re gone and I’m just, it’s not good after that. For some reason, drunk me thought that I could get you to stay by making it physically impossible for you to walk away. But Seabs sort of slapped me upside the head, which is a good indication I got that wrong. I shouldn’t be using shoelaces to get you to stay with me.”

Pat’s fingers are starting to cramp, he’s gripping the handle of the blender jar so tightly. He’s squeezed his eyes shut. If Jonny isn’t serious about this, Pat might not survive this morning, at least not in a functional state.

When Jonny speaks next, he’s much closer than he was before. “Yeah, see, I’m stupid because I never took the time to figure out why drunk me won’t let you out of arm’s reach. I’m crazy about you and didn’t even notice. Everything I said last night? I meant every word of that, Patrick. You are the best, just, the best everything I can think of.”

Pat might have stopped breathing. That sounds, christ, that sounds like everything he’s been waiting for, for what feels like his whole life. He might actually have died this morning, because heaven couldn’t possibly sound any better than that. He should maybe be worried about the consequences of this, but honestly, he’s more worried Jonny will take it back.

That doesn’t mean he’s not going to fuck with him, just a little bit, for making him suffer for the last several hours.

“That is pretty stupid, Jonny.”  _ Don’t laugh, oh god, don’t laugh _ . He turns slowly around; Jonny’s got his eyes closed and body tensed; he looks like he’s waiting for a hit on the ice. He’s the best thing Pat’s ever seen.

“I mean, shoelaces, Jonny? The best you could do was shoelaces?”

Jonny’s eyes fly open. Pat can’t contain his grin anymore.

“Half the people at that table were wearing useless belts, and you had to rob everyone of their shoelaces?”

Jonny relaxes visibly before he rolls his eyes. He reaches out to sock Pat in the shoulder. “God, you’re such a dick,” but he’s smiling as he says it.

“Yeah,” Pat smirks at him. “But you like it.” 

“Yeah,” Jonny replies, beaming at him again. “I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I could, very possibly, be talked into adding more to this. Very possibly.


End file.
